


Down By The Water

by spockandawe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/F, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Time Travel, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3267008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are still young when you are put to work. Age is, perhaps, a meaningless concept when applied to you, as you will never be old in terms of your lifespan. But you are barely pupated when you are given your orders and sent out into the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down By The Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AliveArsenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliveArsenic/gifts).



> So I started this story before things went off anon, but it took a bit longer to write than I'd thought! I'd been flipping through the Ladystuck prompts looking for engaging ideas for underappreciated characters when I saw your prompt about the Handmaid. And it just really clicked! The idea of writing her as lonely was something that makes a lot of sense, but I've never consciously given it attention before. Last year, one of my Ladystuck fills stepped through the Condesce's life as she brushed up against the other ancestors, and it was really interesting to take the same idea and work with it for the Handmaid. I hope you enjoy this!

                You are still young when you are put to work. Age is, perhaps, a meaningless concept when applied to you, as you will never be old in terms of your lifespan. But you are barely pupated when you are given your orders and sent out into the world.

                It is a simple job, you are told. Make this girl an empress. It doesn’t take you long to meet her. You find an abandoned hive at the edge of the ocean and watch the water. It isn’t long before she comes sneaking up the beach to your hive, carrying a trident much too large for her. You don’t have a lusus for her to kill, and when you open your door and step outside, she threatens you with the trident and says she’ll feed _you_ to her mother. She’s even shorter than you are, and when you smile, she smiles back. Meenah Peixes is the first troll you ever meet.

                Moonrise the next night, you wander away from the beach, and come back when you have a hoofbeast carcass so large you can barely manage to lift it with your psionics. Once you get it back to your hive, you dump it on the sand just above the waterline and sit, exhausted, to wait for Meenah. When she sees it, she grins from fin to fin and throws her arms around your neck, hugging you. It is the first time you have ever been touched.

                You suppose that what develops is a relationship. It flows so easily that neither of you really has to try, you just fall in naturally with each other. You kiss like pupas, puckered lips with your faces all scrunched up, and when she announces out loud that you’re her matesprit, you can’t help smiling. As the two of you grow, she only becomes more happy, more daring, pulling you along on adventure after adventure. Almost every evening, she comes to your hive to wake you up, and you sit there with her and braid her hair.

                She doesn’t make it to seven sweeps before the empress kills her. It happens so fast that you don’t even understand what’s happening until it’s over, and then Meenah is just lying there in a pool of spreading blood. The empress walks past you down to the ocean like you don’t even exist, wading into the water and reaching out to touch the long, white tentacles that curl out from the waves. You’re frozen. Meenah is dead. You don’t know what to do. But you have your orders, you know what you _have_ to do.

                You go back.

                This time you’re a little older, a little wiser. You’re more distant. You stay reserved and quiet in your hive until Meenah comes to you, curious. You teach her what you can. You’re a pupa still—but she’s so young. And you know her so, so well. How could you not? It’s so easy for her to open herself up to you. She’s the one, eventually who reaches out to reaches out to pap your cheek and make a tentative little diamond with her fingers. You fall for her again. She dies again.

                You go back.

                You antagonize her from the beach, the two of you kicking each other’s shins in a metaphorical and literal sense, and you try to provoke her into growing strong, strong enough—She dies.

                You ignore her, and she dies.

                You teach her, and she dies.

                You kill her yourself and spend almost a sweep living in that world, with the pain of _this is not right_ pounding in your pan, before you give up and go back to fix it.

                Even when you finally think to kill the empress yourself, it does you no good. You slit her throat with your psionics, and you and Meenah cling to each other in relief, and you can’t get used to her being _alive._ But there’s that same ache eating into you all the while, and you don’t last long before you’re forced to give up, and go back to try again.

                It’s sweeps before you find what works. You lurk in the forest and make Meenah’s life hell. She never knows who you are, or even that you’re _there,_ but she learns to run, hide, and fight. The empress comes hunting, but never finds her. After you’ve watched Meenah grow to adulthood for the first time, she goes on her own to find the empress. It isn’t an easy fight, but at the end, Meenah is the one standing with trident in hand over a limp body.

                She’s the same person you’ve known for dozens of sweeps, but she’s never met you. You toy with the idea of staying, meeting her for the ‘first’ time, trying to rebuild something of what you know the two of you can share—But you are being called home, and you have no power to resist.

                There is no praise, no welcome after sweeps and sweeps away, only a few dry remarks about how long it took you to figure out what needed to be done. And you are sent away again, with new orders.

                Now it’s a little purple-blooded boy, carefully painting his face in his hive every evening, and offering prayers to his messiahs for anything a pupa could want. You’re told he will become the head of the church. Still aching with what you did to Meenah, you tear into his hive, crackling with sickly green power. And you corner the pupa, pinning him to the wall while he shakes, and gives over his messiahs for fear of _you._ And yet, like this, he never rises to power in the church. He’s a heretic, and he pays the price. You could stay the execution, but what’s the point when you’ll have to undo it regardless? You watch for the long while it takes them to kill him, and then you go back.

                It still… hurts. To try kindness. You don’t want to, not after how it served you with Meenah. But you force yourself into it. You introduce yourself, all shy and uncertain, and of course you’re _only_ a rustblood, not one of the faithful. But you are oh-so-curious, and could he teach you about his religion? It’s clumsy, you can absolutely tell that it’s clumsy. You can’t shake the sinking feeling that you’ll need to learn to be a much better liar before your life is over. But it works. All you need to do is keep that look of wide-eyed curiosity, and he’s more than willing to talk to you for hours on end.

                It extends so naturally from telling you about his religion to telling you about himself. It doesn’t happen immediately, it takes some weeks to get him to that point. You’re not sure he ever notices the transition. But when you ask why you’ve never met his lusus, and after he explains that _he_ barely meets his lusus, he does notice it when you reach out and put a hand on his cheek. Even this young, he’s so large it feels like his hands could just engulf your head, but he touches you so gently in return. When you kiss him his greasepaint comes off against your lips, and the two of you laugh and smile together.

                And of course, that isn’t what you’re supposed to do. You can tell even while it’s happening. He grows up gentler than he might have, and happier. He doesn’t give up his religion, but he has _more_ to him than his religion, and you’re almost certain that’s where you went wrong. He’s glad to be a part of the church, and tells you he loves you as much as he does his faithful brothers and sisters. And still, one morning after the two of you have curled up in his recuperacoon together, you go back.

                At this point, you know how to be cruel. You know what he _could_ be, but he won’t, it isn’t allowed to happen, and it is your job to raise him into something else. You push him hard and fast, you just want this to be _over._ And then you learn there is such a thing as too hard and fast. He challenges the head of the church when he’s barely more than a child. At least this time he dies quickly. You go back.

                Even once you think you know what you need to do, you’re overtaken by relief as finally, _finally,_ he kills the head of the church, and you can leave this all behind. Sweeps of work, and who he’s become leaves a bad taste in your mouth that you only want to forget. But you haven’t been called home yet, and you watch from an unnoticed corner of the room as he’s introduced to the empress. And you’ve shaped him too arrogant, too aggressive, _you did something wrong_ , because they’ve barely exchanged more they’re snarling at each other, going for their weapons. She’s faster, and you watch him choke on blood while his color spreads across the floor. You go back.

                You try again. Eventually you find something that works. This Kurloz is cruel and proud, with none of the gentleness you felt when he called you his matesprit. He meets the empress you raised and… it hurts, how well the two of them fit together. You have the horrible feeling that this must be a reflection of who _you_ are, if this is the kind of person you shape. You don’t fight it when you are finally called home.

                More orders, without a chance to rest. Another highblooded child, destined to serve Meenah and Kurloz when all you want is to forget that they were ever hatched. Meenah and Kurloz are older now, when you look at them. Centuries old, cruel and comfortable in their cruelty together. You’re almost certain they’re quadranted together, but you can’t bring yourself to stay and watch long enough to see _which_ quadrant.

                Instead, you go to Horuss. He’s a quiet, reserved pupa. He doesn’t know you, he has no reason to trust you, but he’s still so, so easy to guide. All it takes is ordering him not to become a soldier for him not to become a soldier. You feel almost… guilty that it was so simple. And you go back, of course, because that’s not what has to happen. You approach him more slowly, ease your way into his life. Even as a rustblood, it’s beyond simple to steer him. It’s almost a challenge to guide him gently enough that you don’t disrupt everything.

                And even though you should know better by now, you can’t help coaxing him open enough to actually talk to you. You shouldn’t—But Meenah and Kurloz were perfectly capable of being self-sufficient. They succeeded well enough even when you were doing your best to undo every good thing that ever happened to them. Horuss is not like that. When you finally begin to unravel him—Even though you know it’ll only end badly, you can’t stop yourself from trying to _help_ him. He doesn’t have the same innocent sweetness Meenah did when you were both young, but you realize that you can’t help being touched by Horuss’s overwhelming devotion. And like this, you can tease him into being the tiniest bit more outgoing, the slightest bit more independent. This future is wrong, but you can’t help yourself. The first time you touch his horns, the way he shivers reminds you of the first time Meenah touched you when you were young. And still, you go back.

                You feel so guilty over the troll you shape him into. You ensure that he’s never anything but lonely, even when pure chance would have thrown companions in his direction. You encourage that desperate devotion to be given where it’s not earned. When he reaches adulthood, he’s already better archer than trolls three times his age (how could he not be, when he never had anything to pass the sweeps besides practicing his skills alone in his hive), and it doesn’t take long for him to catch Kurloz’s attention. He and Meenah take Horuss for themselves, and they’re far too intelligent to miss what a useful tool he can be. You go home willingly rather than watch them further.

                You are exhausted, and utterly unsurprised to be immediately given new orders regardless. This new pupa, at least, has no relation to Meenah, Kurloz, and Horuss. That, at least, is some relief. You are so drained and sick of life that you simply watch from a distance as she grows into adulthood, joins a gamblignant crew, and sets out to sea. And dies within a sweep. You need to make her into a captain, with a fleet of ships under her command.

                You’re still used to the passivity of Horuss, so it takes you by surprise when Aranea notices you watching her, and comes marching up to ask you what you’re doing. You lie, of course. And she pushes further, prodding at the parts of your story that hold up the least, asking question after question until she’s satisfied. You realize by the end that you’re almost smiling. And after that, whenever she sees you, she comes and greets you, and never fails to reference something from that first conversation—with a nice theatrical eye roll so you won’t make the mistake of thinking she _believed_ you or anything.

                You know better by now, you really do. You can feel the chain of events slipping away from you every time Aranea says hello. But you can’t find it in you to stay cold and distant. Eventually, you realize you’re not only engaging with her, you’re… _taunting_ , making up outrageous new explanations for her one day, and denying you ever said any such thing the next. It drives her crazy, and somehow you just can’t stop. The first time she kisses you, her hand fisted in the front of your shirt and biting at your lips with her needle-sharp teeth, you’re surprised, yes, but also deeply, deeply satisfied. And like this, you can make her strong enough to be the gamblignant captain she’s going to be.

                She doesn’t go to sea. She doesn’t tell you _what_ she’s doing until she’s already done it. You made a mistake and just assumed her plans were unchanged, until the night she comes to you declaring that she’s found someone to train her as a historian, and since she’s not going to run away anymore, can the two of you get a hive together already? She doesn’t understand why you aren’t as happy as she is. You go back.

                You’re distant, distant, distant. She knows you’re there, but you’re never anything less than cold to her, no matter how she pushes. You make her life hard in every possible way you can imagine, but never in a way she might connect back to you. And she grows up short-tempered and vicious. She’s angry and frustrated, all the time, and she’s more than happy to leave the land behind when she finds a ship willing to take her on. And again, you go home.

                That makes it even more bitter to swallow when you’re sent to shape the troll who is… _meant_ to be Aranea’s kismesis. He’s a vain little thing, not as strong as he thinks he is, but stronger than almost every troll he’s ever met. It’s purely petty, but you kill him once before you go back and try to do it right. You’re still too numb and hurting to do much more than watch as he grows, but at least he doesn’t seem to need much from you.

                And you do try doing better by him. You find him only days after his adult molt, when he's still not used to his own body, and ease him into adulthood yourself. You're patient, you're patient _beyond words_ until he finally, _finally_ drops his front of blustering arrogance, and while you comb your fingers through his hair, he whispers to you the secrets of what he honestly feels and fears. It's not much of a change, just a small one, and his behavior when he's not alone with you is largely unchanged. Even if he still puts on the same face in public, though, there's less conviction behind it, more willingness to be vulnerable and admit that he might not always be right. Maybe, just maybe, this is a small enough difference that it can pass— But no, the future is wrong. You fight it, try to push through, because he still wants to captain a ship, he _does,_ and you-- Even if you and Aranea can't be what you'd hoped for, you can understand what she might see in him. But no matter how you try to convince yourself, the future isn't right, and you go back.

                You do sometimes talk to him. But he never remembers that you do. You can't repair his vanity, not like this, but you do still try to undermine it whenever you have the opportunity. He remains the sort of troll to seize control of a ship and drive the crew to mutiny within a perigee. You watch that future happen several times before you go back again and again, harder, crueler to try to teach Cronus some humility. It’s a turning point, you think, when he tries to corner and intimidate an older yellowblood laborer in the street, and she claws him across the face before making her escape down the back alleys of the city. The many overdramatic stories he tries to make up to explain the scars are amusing, but at least the truth is always there in his head. And he never finds someone willing to curl into a pile with him and coax out the little secrets and vulnerabilities he tries so hard to hide.

                You follow him as an unassuming member of his crew when he goes to sea, and you’re there when he meets Aranea. Her eyes skim over you like you aren’t even there, and at first you feel a little thrill of being _snubbed_ and how _dare_ she—But no. All her attention is on Cronus. They circle each other like a pair of woofbeasts, and even though this is new and fresh, they’ve barely had a chance to get to know each other, you can already tell they’re—This is all wrong, this isn’t what kismeses should _be._

                You want to go home. You don’t want to stay here and watch them call themselves pitch when—You don’t want to, and that’s that. But if you leave them now, you’re almost certain one of them will kill the other within a sweep. And then you’ll only have to come back and try again. So you grit your teeth and intervene. Their voices are just starting to rise, and they’re beginning to flex their claws and show their teeth, right in front of their crews. You sigh, and deliberately, noisily drop your weapon.

                They turn and stare. The tension is gone. Aranea laughs and mocks Cronus, telling him that it’s a such a shame he couldn’t afford a competent crew. He snarls and retaliates—verbally. Neither one is thinking of killing the other right now, and that’s about all you could ask for. You’re trying not to think about how many sweeps you’ll have to stay here and watch them.

                It’s too many sweeps. You watch over them for several rustblood lifetimes, and you’ve never resented your extended life as much as you do now. Any time their fleets meet, you keep yourself on hand to disrupt things as needed. The few times you assume they’ll be fine for an evening on their own, Cronus comes back with broken fingers, and you hear about it when Aranea nearly loses an eye. You try letting them kill each other once every few sweeps, but no, each time you have to go back to fix it. For the sake of variety, you even split them from each other entirely, but no matter what you try your thinkpan pounds with the wrongness of the universe, and you have to go back to fix it.

                Eventually, you work your way up the ranks so that you’ll have at least a little personal leverage when you need to interfere. You serve as first mate to Cronus, and are frequently the one to carry personal messages between him and Aranea. He comes to you, frustrated with her and almost ready to take out his anger in permanent ways, and she vents to you when she reads his messages, demanding answers about what is he _thinking?_ She never remembers you from sweeps ago. You take the strain of their relationship on yourself and support them, and they keep calling themselves kismeses. And every time you walk in on them in each other’s laps, you have to remind yourself that this is a _success._

                It is a relief when they settle into quiet, sullen pitch romance together, and you are finally allowed to go home. It’s even almost pleasant to be given another assignment, just anything, _anything_ to get you away from this, this—You would appreciate a change of scene, that is all. It’s easy to lose yourself in mindless assignments. Sweeps and sweeps of shaping history in any conceivable way. Sometimes you advise Meenah, or Kurloz. They never remember you. You don’t… often bother trying to be kind anymore. It’s easiest not to. You do try to subvert your orders as often as you can. It never works. You do it anyways, undoing sweeps at a time and finding new ways to twist the future, but it never works.

                It all runs together, for hundreds and hundreds of sweeps. Eventually, you are sent with a series of orders that begin with a jadeblood finding a mutant red grub. When you observe from a distance, she simply observes the meteor strike that brings the grub, then returns to her work. She eventually gives in to curiosity and goes to explore the crater, but by then it’s too late. You go back, and observe the grub instead. It rolls around and waves its legs, and watches you with eyes that are much too bright. Eventually a giant purrbeast comes slinking over the edge of the crater. It eyes you while it edges closer to the grub, but you do nothing to stop it when it picks the grub off and carries it off into the distance. You go back.

                You could do what you’re obviously supposed to and send the jadeblood off to investigate the crater sooner. You could. Or you could distract her, flirting shamelessly until she’s too distracted to even notice the meteor in the first place. It doesn’t even feel like a chore once you’ve gotten started. Porrim is genuinely gentle and kind, and it’s so very easy to make her blush bright green. You feel a little guilty when she makes you promise to meet her here again tomorrow night before she heads back into the hatching caverns. You waste half of the day before you go back, wondering if maybe you _should_ stay to talk to her for a night or two more.

                In the end, you never meet her at all. You only put on a flashy display of psionics from the still-smoking crater while the grub laughs and waves its legs. It feels suspiciously benevolent. Your orders are never kind to the people they concern. And almost all your orders for the next few sweeps concern Porrim and her grub.

                It seems so simple. All you need to do is bring a group of four together. So you fight it. You take the little feral pupa and drive all the nearby prey animals away, so she’s desperate from hunger when Porrim and her grub wander through her territory. She attacks them, and Porrim defends herself, and that’s that. Or the first time Kankri tries to speak to a crowd, it takes so _little_ to turn them against him, and no matter how he tries to defend himself, there’s only so much that can be done against a crowd of angry, bloodthirsty trolls. Or he makes it through that first speech, several speeches, but when he tries to turn an abused yellowblooded slave against his masters, that slave… _happens_ to have been particularly conditioned for loyalty. Kankri, Porrim, and Meulin end up as piles of ash and bones.

                There are so many pieces that need to come together, and you don’t trust any of it. This grub is miraculously found by the one troll willing to care for it, this lonely pupa serendipitously falls in with these others, they spread a heresy without any repercussions, they free a beaten slave, and everything is _perfect_. You don’t trust it at all. You change everything you can possibly think of. Meulin is hunting on the other side of her territory and never sees Porrim and Kankri. Mituna is sold to a new master the day before Kankri would have found him. Porrim is injured badly enough to have a permanent limp that keeps her from traveling. There are so many ways for this to end imperfectly, but not terribly, and none of them are _right_.

                After sweeps of trying, you’re so frustrated that you go back, back all the way, and just kill the little red grub. You kill him in the crater, you kill him when Porrim tries to defend him, _you’re_ the one to kill him the first time he tries to preach. You kill Porrim instead of flirting with her underneath the moons. You kill the little oliveblooded pupa, you kill Mituna, you kill all of them over and over for sweeps and sweeps and none of it _works_. You give up. You go back and help them succeed.

                Porrim finds Kankri. They both find Meulin. Kankri preaches about blood, and they all find and free Mituna. How lovely. Is that all then? Can you go now before seeing the consequences of your actions? Of course not. Instead you trail along behind them, ensuring they aren’t killed quite as young as they should be. You often think about whether they wonder at how even the most hostile towns are slow to respond to Kankri’s preaching, how they always, _always_ have enough time to flee, even once the military and church begin to take notice of the ideas they’re spreading.

                You follow them for sweeps. You’re in every crowd they speak to, twisting things however you have to so that they stay alive and that Kankri’s preaching spreads. You watch them all love each other, and you trail along behind them. It takes you completely by surprise one night when Kankri is done speaking, the crowd is dispersing, and Kankri squares his shoulders, marches right up to you and says, “Hello again.”

                You are caught completely off guard. You try to pretend confusion, which is only partly insincere, because this, this, you aren’t used to this _ever_ happening—How does he know who you are? He must see the look on your face, because he laughs gently and tells you that if you’re going to be there in every single town, they’re bound to start recognizing you eventually. And then he calls you Damara. You are a little ashamed to find that you flee at that point.

                But. You have to be there the next night when he talks. You do _have_ to be there; church soldiers are looking for him and are closing in fast. And while he’s still preaching, Meulin sidles up to you, and offers you a still-warm handful of bread. You can feel Porrim and Mituna watching you from Kankri’s side, and you’re frozen, you have no idea what to do. Meulin presses the bread into your hand, and when you don’t respond, she pats you on the shoulder and slips away through the crowd. And after Kankri is done speaking, the reason you hide and avoid them is because you have to distract the church soldiers. Of course.

                They do manage to corner you a few weeks later. It… has been a long time since you have been frightened, but you think you can’t honestly say you are at piece right now. You’ve been through dozens and dozens of sweeps now without a single proper conversation, and you’re certain this will send everything _wrong_ and you’ll only have to fix it. You could have probably avoided this confrontation without too much difficulty. But. _He called you Damara_.

                It’s far too easy to let them persuade you to come back to their campsite with them. It’s far too easy to spend the day sleeping there, to go with them that night, to camp with them the _next_ day—Does it have to be wrong? You can manipulate events just as well like this, can’t you? Porrim is just as sweet and lovely as that first night you met—That night you _didn’t_ meet her. You are increasingly certain Meulin is having the time of her life trying to figure out how to get a rise out of you, and Mituna just watches you closely from a distance. Kankri acts like he’s known you for sweeps.

                It can’t last, but you can’t bring yourself to end it. One night becomes two, three, four, and you lose count. It’s already too hard to just give all this up and begin again, but it’s becoming more and more difficult the longer you spend with them. Instead of protecting them because it’s your job, you’re protecting them because you don’t want them to die, and it’s all while you try your hardest not to think about how this isn’t _right_. Porrim puts her arm around your waist and leans up against you while you listen to Kankri preach. Meulin pounces on you, pinning you against a tree, then she play-growls, kisses you under your chin so you can feel her fangs prickle against the vulnerable stretch of your throat, and then darts off before you can even begin to react.

                It takes perhaps half a sweep before you break down and tell Kankri everything. It takes hours. It’s horrible. He sits there, all patience and kindness, tucking you up against his thorax and stroking your hair while you talk. He doesn’t interrupt a single time while it all pours out of you, not even when you tell him that you’re certain your whole _purpose_ in being here is to deliver him to Meenah to die, even then he just holds you shielded and safe. Once or twice, at—at the worst parts, he presses his lips to your temple, holding you close, just breathing against your skin. By the time it’s done, you’ve lost your voice, and your eyes burn from crying.

                He does ask you questions then, and you answer them as best as you can. He wants to know what will happen to Meulin, Mituna, and Porrim, and you wish you could give him an answer, you wish you _knew_. But it can’t be good, because you won’t be allowed to do anything that’s truly kind in your whole life. Your purpose is to ruin everything you touch. Kankri’s hands are distractingly soft and soothing against your face, and he kisses your forehead while you talk. You curl up against him like a grub, and eventually you fall asleep like that.

                When you wake up in the evening, you’re still nestled against him, but the other three have come back to the camp too. All four of them are surrounding you, tucked in close with you in the center. You take one last look at Kankri’s sleeping face, and you go back.

                You only go back a day, because you’re weak and so, so selfish. When they ask about your bloodshot eyes and lack of a voice, you tell them that you must have caught a cold—Perhaps they’d like to cull you for the good of the species? And they all laugh and Kankri’s hand is so warm on your shoulder and you hate yourself just that little bit more.

                It only lasts for so long. Kurloz becomes personally involved first, but it doesn’t take much time before he involves Meenah too. And she… is strong. They’re both strong and clever, with thousands of trolls at their disposal, and there’s only so much that you can do. The four of you are cornered eventually, hiding in a cave, huddled together while Porrim tears strips from her clothing to bandage Mituna’s leg. There is an army outside. Dozens of psionics, hundreds of soldiers. This is it. This is beyond your ability to fix. You kiss them all one last time, even Mituna, look at them, try to lock this picture in your mind so that you can remember it when it never happened. And you go back.

                You find Porrim the night the meteor lands. You know her so well, even though she doesn’t know you anymore—It’s. It’s irrelevant, because this isn’t what has to happen either, you know it isn’t, but you have to try. You’re the one to call her attention to the falling meteor, and you’re the one to suggest that the two of you walk over to see what’s there. You find the bright red grub together, and you take the grub and run away to protect him together. You feed him and raise him and love him together, and you only manage to last until his pupation. It’s when you and Porrim are each holding a hand for him as he toddles around on uncertain legs, that’s when you realize that you can’t do this, you can’t live through this again.

                You go back without even looking at them, acknowledging them, because this hurts and you’re too ashamed of how weak you are, that you would undo what had to happen just to chance an impossible future. Like before, you draw Porrim’s attention to the crater from a distance. The two of you never meet. You never meet Kankri, or Meulin, or Mituna. You watch from a distance and shape their lives. You _save_ their lives, and you never stop being aware that you’re only saving them now for them to die later. You do your work hidden in abandoned hives, in alleys, behind corners, not willing to let them see you, not willing to look at them yourself.

                You give in to your own selfishness occasionally, and you watch Kankri preach from the front of the crowd, watch the way he talks and moves. It aches to realize that he’s so, so familiar to you, but you’ll never be familiar to him. You only do it once in a while, but you still think he might beginning to recognize you, and you hope with everything you have that you haven’t ruined this future too, that you won’t have to go back and redo all of this again. He tries to come looking for you once or twice. And you think Meulin tries to find you too, but you hide. You’re too weak, and you just. You just can’t.

                Even though you aren’t with them, the ending is painfully familiar to how it was before. It ends with them cornered and exhausted, outnumbered beyond hope. Kurloz is there himself, and looking at him now is so horribly different from knowing him as the little pupa who smiled when he showed you how he painted his face and prayed to his messiahs. You kill Kankri, Porrim, Meulin, and Mituna yourself, to spare them. Of course, that isn’t allowed to last. You go back and allow Kurloz to take them himself. It’s awful how much he’s learned about how to hurt a person without killing them.

                And you think that this must be it, that you can go home now, and whatever you need to do, it can’t possibly be as awful as _this_. But no. You’re forced to follow as Kurloz takes them to Meenah, as he very, _very_ carefully keeps them alive. And Meenah doesn’t react with any kind of horror, but with outright glee.

                You have to be there for the execution. You try and try and try _not_ to be, but it’s never right, you keep going back to that evening and trying _so hard_ to find any path forward, but it’s hopeless. The spectacle of it is so clearly Kurloz and Meenah’s personal touch that you can barely watch. You’re there when Kankri is dragged out before the crowd, dripping with blood and barely able to stand. And then they put the red-hot irons on him. Once he starts screaming, you have to look away. You can smell burning flesh.

                Horuss is there, as loyal as ever to Meenah and Kurloz, because of course he is, that’s what _you_ shaped him to be. His bow is drawn and trained on Kankri, though he makes no move to fire. Even though—It can’t be right, but what if it _is?_ What if this has been enough suffering, what if it can end? It’s so easy to reach for every time Horuss has used his bow, so many times over so many sweeps, and to let it all echo down his arm. The arrow goes straight into Kankri’s eye, and it’s mercifully over.

                And of course, it isn’t right, _because_ it is merciful. You go back, and force yourself to watch as Kankri gives his last sermon. And he recognizes you, that’s the worst of it. He sees you, standing behind Horuss, and you know he knows who you are. Meulin sees you too, where she and Porrim and Mituna are chained. Porrim isn’t looking away from Kankri, and Mituna—He has a dirty bandage wrapped around his head, his eyes are unfocused, and he’s swaying weakly in place. But Meulin locks eyes with you. And. You can tell what she wants. You understand what she’s trying to demand of you. But it’s no good, you _know_ it’s no good, there is _nothing you can do._

                You can tell when Meenah gets bored, because it’s when she signals for Horuss to fire. And you can’t help yourself, it’s too sudden, too _soon_ , and you take all those thousands times he shot his bow perfectly, and you break those moments. The arrow doesn’t fly true. It lodges in Kankri’s side instead, and he’s still alive. He coughs weakly, and fresh blood spills over his chin, but he’s still _alive_. And after a few moments, he goes on preaching. You can see the arrow moving with every breath he takes. No matter how well you did-or-didn’t know him, he’s always been such a kind, patient person, and this last sermon is so full of anger and hurting that you have to close your eyes and look away. It takes him so long to finally die.

                And then, Meulin tears away from the soldiers holding her, and runs up to Kankri, stumbling to a halt at his feet. Everyone is still frozen, and it takes the crowd too long to even understand what’s happening. Meulin gathers up Kankri’s leggings, and from where you are, you can see that she’s crying. The only person to react is Kurloz, who snaps, “Executioner!” Horuss draws and aims his bow, and you wonder dully whether you’re supposed to help him or stop him, how many times you’ll have to relive the day before you finally get it right.

                But Horuss doesn’t fire. It isn’t anything that you’ve done. He just watches Meulin, unmoving. Even when Kurloz shouts for him to do it, he doesn’t fire. From where you are, you can see his hands just barely shaking. Meulin is the first one to move. She breaks past him, goes right past you, and from the look she gives you, you think she might have killed you if she’d had the chance. You hold the crowd still, keep the people slow to react, and you hope you’ve bought her enough time to run. It feels too kind to be allowed, for you to let her escape, though after _this_ , you doubt that any of your actions could be described as kind at all.

                And after that, you are finally allowed to limp home. You want nothing more than to rest, or to do _anything_ that will dull the memory, or let you forget. And you are immediately ordered to Meenah’s palace. Of course, why would you assume your work was done until you’d brought everyone involved to the absolute lowest point? You still have to finish destroying Porrim and Mituna’s lives.

                You slip yourself into the palace as an advisor. It’s a time of chaos, and it is a simple matter to take on whatever authority you want. It’s unusual to see a rustblood still loyal to the throne, but it’s easy enough to spout off whatever casteist dogma earns you highblood trust. And it so happens that you work yourself into the position to orchestrating Porrim’s sale as a slave. You look—You try to look for a kind master, you do. Even though you know it can’t be right. But you’re so exhausted, you can’t find the energy to explore all of the possibilities and futures, and when you see Aranea, you can’t help thinking that she might be a kind mistress. She’s been hardened by sweeps on the sea, but you remember when she was so young and sweet, and how could anyone find it in them to be cruel to Porrim? Now, you’ve never even talked to Porrim, and it still breaks your heart to sell her like this. You try to reassure yourself that there must be many worse masters out there, but it’s a weak comfort.

                Once you realize what’s meant to happen to Mituna, you do find it in you to fight a little for him. The idea of turning him into an undying helmsman—Like you, but even _less_ free, _more_ constrained, turned into a piece of _equipment—_ The two of you were never that close, or of course, now you’ve never even spoken, but you can’t just let that happen. You can’t. You kill him in his jail cell, you falsify the reports on the strength of his psionics, you’re there for his installation where there is a _tragic_ malfunction and the new helm dies unexpectedly. None of it works, of course. No, in fact, what you are meant to do is _call attention_ to his remarkable psionics and set him on the path to the helm. But you can’t stop trying, sweeps of trying just to save one person from _one_ awful thing when it’s all your fault that it’s happening to them in the first place. It’s no good, and eventually you’re too tired to go on, and Mituna is installed as a helmsman.

                You should go home after that. You really should. Instead you go back, back, _back_ , all the way to Meenah. You take her and _run_ , run as far and as fast as you can. You hide her and protect her, and you let her grow the way she _should_ grow, not the way you forced her to grow. It doesn’t take you very long to crack, and you tell her everything, aching with shame and frustration. She’s so, so tiny, barely pupated, but she pets your hair and pats your cheeks as solemnly as any adult, and tells you not to worry, because she’ll protect you. Even when you tell her what you made her into, and tell her she should hate you, she doesn’t.

                And of course, this doesn’t do you any good. The future is wrong now, and you can feel it as a nagging pain at the back of your pan. You hold out for sweeps, protecting Meenah from the empress until Meenah can protect _herself_ from the empress. And she takes the throne with all kinds of new ideas about what Alternia should be and how she should behave and it doesn’t matter because _none of this is right_.

                So you give up. You go back. There’s nothing else to do. And you already know what works. You raise Meenah to be aggressive and mistrustful. When she’s ready, she takes the throne and sets on her way to become the empress you already know she will be. But that isn’t where it ends, of course. You have to raise Kurloz to be her perfect complement. You have to raise Horuss to be their perfect tool. And it all hurts and hurts, because you have _known_ what they could be, and you’re already too familiar with the trolls they will be in the future. You shape Mindfang and Dualscar, facilitate their kismesissitude, live again through how toxic it is, when you know full well what Aranea is capable of being in a healthy pitch relationship. Everything that you have accomplished before, you have to redo now. And. You go through everything again with Porrim, Kankri, Meulin, and Mituna. You watch Porrim raise Kankri, you protect him as he preaches, you live through his execution one last time. And when that’s done, you sell Porrim and make Mituna into a helmsman. You’re there when he’s knocked out before the surgery to remove his limbs and install his ports, and just before he slips into unconsciousness, you can’t help whispering, “I’m sorry.”

                When you finally stagger home after lifetimes of work, the only acknowledgement you get of what you’ve been through is a few dry remarks in the vein of, “I hope you’ve learned a lesson about sulking.” That’s all. Nothing else. And without a moment to recover, you’re given your new orders and sent out. You feel. Numb. You don’t feel like you’re attached to your own body. For the first time _ever_ , you miss your mark, and end up sweeps earlier than you meant to arrive, on the wrong part of the planet. Even once you realize your mistake, you can’t find it in you to fix it. You’re lying in a field of grass, and it’s just too hard to even move. You feel like your body isn’t yours, and you can’t remember how to move, how to speak, anything. You just lay where you landed, and watch clouds roll across the moons.

                Even once the sun starts to rise, you can’t bring yourself to find shelter. It’s easier to go back to when the sun had just finished setting, and you lay right where you are and watch the same night happen again. You want to cry, but you feel too hollow to even do that. After a few hours, you manage to force yourself to sit right. And eventually, you even stand. You still feel floating and detached, you don’t remember how to make your body work. Does it even matter? You could waste lifetimes like this, and all it means is that eventually you have to do the same work as ever. You could sit here until the planet dies, and it wouldn’t matter. But if you begin working now, it’s that much sooner that you’ll be done forever, and that’s the thought that sets you in motion.

                You go far away from civilization, to an isolated cave system near the coast. And you find Meulin. She looks… awful. And you can hardly blame her. She doesn’t even know what happened to Porrim and Mituna, and you can’t bring yourself to tell her. Not even knowing that you can go back and make it so you never told her at all. You still can’t do it. You can’t even bring yourself to show yourself to her.

                You’re supposed to help Horuss find her. And. You don’t want to, you really don’t. Even apart from trying to find _any_ way for you to impact the future on your own, you don’t think this is right, not for either of them. Meulin spends her time in the caves transcribing Kankri’s preaching, writing it on the cave walls in animal blood. Sometimes when she’s sleeping, you go through the caves and read, and just let yourself remember. It aches for you, and you can’t even imagine how it must feel for Meulin. You’re certain that letting Horuss find her would make her miserable beyond words. You don’t even know what he _wants_. All you know is that he didn’t kill her, even when Kurloz ordered him to.

                So you don’t let him find her. It helps. It helps a great deal to feel like you’re doing something kind, after so many sweeps of going back and destroying everything you touched. _Twice_. Even if you know this isn’t what supposed to happen, it still helps. You feel fiercely protective of Meulin, and maybe you can have just one single kind action that you aren’t forced to undo. If you let her recover on her own, maybe she _can_ recover. She’s strong. She’s fierce and strong and when you knew her she wouldn’t ever have given up without a fight. You _admire_ her.

                You lead Horuss in the exact wrong direction. It’s so simple, and you feel a rush of guilt all over again that you made him into this person. He’s so detached and isolated that he latches onto the first hint of a guiding force and clings. You remember teasing him, when he was young. You remember encouraging him to stand without you, to make his own decisions and hold to them. You remember stroking his face and reassuring him that you knew he could do it.

                And even now, even though this Horuss never knew you this way, the moment you show yourself to him and give him direction, he gives himself completely over to you. You don’t deserve this, but all you want to do is open your arms to him, to protect him and _help_ him. There’s. There’s more to him than this, if he only had the right support, he could become—It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Because this is the wrong future, and anything you do now won’t be allowed to last. And yet, you still spend almost two sweeps, just you and him, carefully unwinding that desperate devotion, helping him stand on his own. Every night you spend together just makes it ache worse, because you know this can’t last, it can’t. And eventually, you do take one last look at him sleeping in his recuperacoon. You stroke the hair back from his face and just take in the memory of him, and try to accept that this is the last time you will be together like this. And then you go back.

                Even when you keep him away and let him wander as aimless and unhappy as before, it doesn’t do Meulin any good. You want to grab her and shake her, to remind her that she’s _stronger_ than this, to tell her to survive and push on to spite Meenah. It doesn’t do any good. No matter how you try to support her from the shadows, she lets herself wither away and dies within a sweep. She’s. She _is_ stronger than this, you know exactly how fierce she can be, and it hurts so much that it’s… very much your fault that this has happened to her. If it wasn’t for you. Well. A lot of the blame falls squarely on your shoulders.

                Eventually, you give up, and guide Horuss to her cave instead of away from it. It hurts her just as much as you were afraid. Horuss fixes all of that overwhelming devotion on her, but she just hates him and wants him to leave. But even when she tells him, over and over and over, that she doesn’t want him there, he doesn’t go, and just throws himself even further to serving her. You ache to step between them and _help_. This is all wrong. Wrong for both of them. He makes her miserable, and the more she makes it clear that he’s only making her unhappy, the more wretched and devoted he becomes.

                And yet, she doesn’t die. This is the… correct future. He brings her food and cares for her when she won’t care for herself. He even carefully produces her inks for her and offers to transcribe whatever she wants, no matter how many times she snaps at him to just _leave._ And you suppose that… hating him helps give her the energy to go on. It hurts, especially when you know how sweet she can be when she hates somebody the right way. But this is what’s meant to happen, and no matter what you might try to change, you’ll always have to come back and set this path in motion again.

                You stay and watch all through the rest of her lifespan. You see the first disciples of the Sufferer’s come to her and beg to be taught. More and more trolls come seeking her out, wearing his shackles— _his shackles_ —around their necks. You can’t stand to hear them talking about Kankri like he was a god. You don’t think it makes Meulin any happier, but she still patiently spreads his _actual_ teachings for sweeps and sweeps, while you watch her slowly age, until finally, one evening, she just doesn’t wake up.

                Horuss lingers in the cave for a while, but when the disciples begin to seek _his_ counsel, he leaves. Even though you—You, you _aren’t_ pale for him and you can never be, but you congratulate him in your head on making the right decision. You really ought to go home now, there hasn’t been a reason for you to stay for quite some time. But you follow along behind him until he’s settled on a quiet rocky island, making a home for himself. He’s as lonely as he’s ever been, but he isn’t in a position to give his devotion where it’s unwanted or undeserved, and you suppose that’s the best that you’ll be allowed to possibly hope for.

                When you go home, you almost wish you’d stayed and watched Horuss for longer, because your new orders send you right back to Porrim. You. You’d thought that was _done,_ that it was over, you can’t imagine what you’re supposed to do to her now. And even before you take your orders into consideration, what Aranea’s done to her horrifies you. Aranea is _better_ than this! She—Using her powers like this is unworthy of her. And it’s unworthy of _Porrim_. If Aranea has any desire to pursue Porrim flush, can’t she see that Porrim deserves better than this? Or has Aranea just become the kind of person to laugh this off as a harmless diversion?

                And of course, your orders concern how Porrim dies. You want to apologize to her. For. Everything. You look at her now, scarred and beaten and dressed in rags, and it’s such an awful contrast to when you first saw her in the moonlight, the night that Kankri’s meteor landed. And you’re the one who sold her here. Because you thought Aranea might be a _kind_ owner. You feel sick to your stomach.

                Cronus is supposed to kill Porrim. It only takes a few moments of observing him and Aranea together to see that things between them are just as toxic as they were at the start. And they’ve been doing this for who knows how long, without _any_ hint of an auspistice. And you have a sinking feeling that you’ll be expected to fill that role again. That hurt badly enough when you respected Aranea, and now you’re just disgusted with both of them. And of course Aranea manipulating Porrim into having sex—That upsets Cronus, but not for any silly reason like it being _wrong_! No, he’s jealous, because someone besides him is getting attention. And for that, he’s going to kill Porrim.

                You know how this has to end. You really do. But you wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself if you didn’t at least try. For Porrim’s sake. You do your best to mediate between Aranea and Cronus. You go back, further and further, trying to find the right place to salvage things. You work your way into each of their crews in turn, keep them at a healthy distance. Of course, the moment either of them realizes what you’re doing, they turn on you. No matter how many perigees you put into earning their trust, it all gets washed away the moment they realize you’re auspisticizing between them. It’s exhausting, and you never get any of the respect that should be a part of the relationship. And none of it does any good for Porrim. If you’re involved enough to have influence with Aranea or Cronus, you’re obvious enough that they turn on you. And if you keep your distance, they both behave just as despicably as they did before, and Porrim is caught between them.

                So at least you try to protect Porrim. Why does her death _matter_ to the future, why is it so important that she die here, on top of everything else you’ve already put her through? You give up on auspisticizing, and focus on Aranea. You work your way into her crew, and every so often, you still feel a thrill of attraction when she reminds you of the troll she used to be—But it isn’t her now. It isn’t, and you need to remember that. The morning Cronus is planning to take action, you wake Aranea and warn her—Making up some imaginary moirail on his ship that passed you word. Aranea storms out in a rage, and she reaches Porrim’s room just moments before Cronus does. You’re following close behind, to observe, but you haven’t turned down the last flight of stairs yet when you see the flash of blinding light. By the time you get there, Aranea is… _gone_. Porrim is lying in a pool of blood. Cronus shoves past you, still carrying his rifle as he makes his way back to his own ship.

                You try again, a few more times, but nothing works. You go through perigees just manipulating that last morning, twisting it in every way possible, until you have to admit that there just. Is no way to save Porrim. So that last morning, when she lays down, exhausted, to sleep, you sit there with her. You just stroke her hair while she sleeps. And now that she can’t hear you, you can apologize. How worthless. You try to explain yourself to her, tell her just how sorry you are, and even though nobody’s listening but you, you’re humiliated by how stilted and inexcusable it comes out. Instead you sit in silence, and count the minutes until it will be over. At some point, she turns under her thin blanket, and curls herself against your side. You wait until the last possible moment, kiss her forehead one last time, and leave.

                You can hear Cronus arrive as you turn the corner. And you can see the flash of light as he fires his rifle. He ignores you altogether as he stalks back off to his ship, all bitterness and pride. How sad, that killing a defenseless slave is a thing for him to be _proud_ of, when he commands an entire fleet of ships. You don’t want to wait to see Aranea discover what he’s done. You don’t want anything more to do with her. You go home.

                So of course, now that you’ve decided you want nothing more to do with Aranea, she’s the person your orders concern. But not the _only_ person. Rather than deal with Aranea, you dive into Latula’s life. She’s a promising young thing, rising quickly as a legislacerator. She catches Kurloz’s eye early, and that’s the first thing to make you nervous. It’s too early to meddle with any chance of success, you know that, but you go back and sabotage her in little ways, nothing overt, but she finishes her training without proving herself to be remarkable, and the head of the church has no reason to notice her. That isn’t right, because as an unrecognized neophyte, she has no reason to be assigned to interesting or difficult cases – like a gamblignant queen who’s been capturing just a few too many imperial vessels.

                The way you’d sabotaged Latula was subtle, but you’re almost certain that she suspects something anyways. You’ve learned to be careful about how often trolls see you, but before you give up on this future, you catch her watching you closely, even though you’re just a face in a crowd, even though she should have no reason to know who you are. You can’t help lingering a little while just to watch her try to solve the mystery, until the ache of the wrong future in your thinkpan gets to be too much, and you go back to fix it.

                So Latula proves herself in early, obvious ways, and a great many people notice her. In particular, Kurloz selects her to act as a special agent of the church and throne. And this time, even though you aren’t doing anything to affect her, and even though you’re still keeping yourself largely hidden—Somehow she still learns to recognize you anyways. It reminds you of when Aranea was young, and challenged you to tell you who you _really_ were. But Latula is more carefree than Aranea was. It takes her sweeps and sweeps to act on anything, she just seems to enjoy picking you out of any public scene, and making a point of waving to you. No matter how hard you try to hide yourself. It’s intensely frustrating and amusing at the same time.

                She achieves a great deal working under Kurloz and Meenah. And before she even reaches fifteen sweeps, she seduces Kurloz so thoroughly that you can practically see his head spinning. It’s… fascinating, to see him so _happy_. You haven’t seen him act anything like this since he was a pupa, and it’s difficult to reconcile the way you saw him treat Kankri with how tender and sweet he is with Latula. And at the same time, you are absolutely certain that this will only end badly, because Latula wears a necklace with Kankri’s shackles beneath her shirt.

                At the same time, she’s becoming gradually more forward in making sure you know exactly how often she spots you when you’re trying to hide. It’s infuriating in the best way possible. She’s stunningly intelligent, and everything she says and does makes you want to push _back_ and see exactly what she’s capable of handling. The first time you respond when she plucks you out of a crowd, all she says is, “ _Finally._ ” And she kisses you hard and deep, with enough teeth that you can taste blood by the time she pulls away. It’s _perfect_.

                She figures out so much of who and what you are without you ever admitting it. And when, perigees late, you eventually force yourself to tell her that this future is _wrong_ , that it won’t be allowed to last, she only shrugs and tells you that this is worth having _now._ And then she kisses you so thoroughly that you have to believe she may be right.

                Latula and Kurloz are still as flush for each other as ever. And you can see so much of who he was as a pupa when you watch the two of them together. But when they’re apart, he’s no different from the Kurloz who tortured and killed Kankri. Latula never stops wearing her shackle necklace. You try to warn her, over and over, that this will only end badly, and that’s he’s more dangerous than she wants to believe. But she only paps you right across the nose and darts away before you can snap at her, telling you not to worry, that she’s always careful. And she is. You manage, you and her, and her and him, for sweeps without any problems. She might only be a neophyte, but Kurloz and Meenah value her, they send her on mission after mission and she knows nothing but success.

                You last for those sweeps with the ache of the wrong future getting worse and worse in the back of your pan, until finally you can’t take it anymore. You tell Latula. She teases you that it’s a shame that you weren’t strong enough to last even a little longer, but when she sees the look on your face, she just reaches out for you and holds you close. You’re much taller than she is, but somehow she manages to tuck you up against her thorax, and you can just shut your eyes and lean into the soothing coolness of her. She tells you to leave after she’s asleep, so she never has time to miss you. Hours later, after you’ve finally tucked her safely into her recuperacoon (and spent another hour just sitting there, watching her), then you go back.

                In the end, you never meet her. Of course. You shouldn’t expect anything different at this point. She still recognizes you, no matter how well you hide yourself, and it’s a constant painful reminder of what you could have had. But you never acknowledge her, no matter how aggravating she makes herself, no matter how she tries to tease you. She and Kurloz still find each other. She still wears her necklace. You aren’t there to warn her—But she’s careful regardless. He never finds it, and you watch them for sweeps, until you finally have to admit that the future has slipped away from you, somewhere along the way. You go back and try again. And again.

                You keep trying, but none of this makes sense. Latula serves Kurloz, she is as brilliant and successful as ever, you can hardly imagine her doing otherwise. You nudge things in one direction, then another, and you spend more than a lifetime trying to figure out _how_ you’re supposed to destroy her life. Finally in a fit of frustration, watching her and Kurloz sleep the day away together, you reach for the chain around her neck, and tug the shackles out of hiding.

                Kurloz wakes first. You’re expecting him to fly into a rage. You’re watching from a dark corner of the room, and the expression on his face sends a shiver down your spine. He watches Latula sleep for a few minutes, but then, all he does is carefully tuck her necklace back into her shirt. He wakes her up, as tender as ever, but you don’t… you don’t _think_ you’re imagining the tension you can see in him as they begin their night together. You keep waiting for the itch of a wrong future to start eating at your thinkpan, but the night continues, and it doesn’t happen. Everything seems… fine. So showing the necklace to Kurloz must have been what you were supposed to do, this whole time. And with a sinking heart, you have to wonder what have you just _done_ to Latula?

                She’s given a new job the next night. Kurloz grins from ear to ear when he passes along his orders. It’s an ambitious job to be sure, but he says she’s proved that she’s more than capable of handling it. He tells Latula to capture and try Marquise Spinneret Mindfang. You think Latula must suspect something isn’t quite right, but how could she know what exactly is wrong? She takes her orders with a smile, and you can only barely see the uncertainty on her face. She sets out the following evening to find Aranea.

                Aranea isn’t difficult to find. She’s known very little but success, and she’s only grown bolder and bolder over the centuries. Latula is far from the being the first legislacerator sent to bring her to trial, and when you go snooping in her records, you find that none of the others have even come back alive. Latula is traveling on her lusus, and you might be good at staying hidden, but there’s honestly no way you can sneak onto a flying scalebeast. Instead, you work your way into Aranea’s crew. For the third (three hundredth) time.

                You don’t want to be here. You’ve lived through enough sweeps that the memory of what she did to Porrim isn’t as raw as it used to be, but you’re so ashamed of who she became when you _knew_ her when she was so young and innocent. Once, she’d wanted to become a historian. And just like before, you still know her well enough to work your way into her trust, even in the few short weeks it takes Latula to find her. And just like before, you are painfully aware that this Aranea is nothing like the Aranea you once knew.

                You become aware Latula has found her only when Pyralspite comes diving out of the sky, and lands squarely on Aranea’s flagship. Latula jumps down to the deck before Pyralspite has even fully settled, and Aranea is already stalking across the deck to meet them. Honestly, you aren’t certain which way the fight will go. You rather think you’ll have to go through this day a number of times before you determine how things need to go. But then Aranea and Latula start circling each other, grinning wide and fierce, and your heart sinks. It’s almost. It’s very nearly _exactly_ the same as when Aranea and Cronus met, and you are absolutely certain that this will go no better.

                But. Latula isn’t Cronus, and you have to remember that. She has the restraint he never thought was worth learning, she has less of his brittle pride. But then again, no matter how close she and Kurloz have become, Latula’s sense of justice and fairness has remained unshaken, and—Aranea is Aranea. You were—You _haven’t_ been, not in this present, but you were pitch for both of them, once. You can see why that spark is there, but you can’t imagine how this can possibly be something healthy or sustainable.

                It’s so hypocritical, judging them from the outside like this. But you know both of them, you do. And in this present, Latula’s seen you—She knows you exist, even if she doesn’t know who or what you are, she’s made a point of picking you out of every scene she’s ever found you in. And now she’s completely caught up in Aranea, and her eyes skim over you without a single hint of recognition. It stings.

                You consider doing nothing, out of pure spite. They both must be aware of each other’s motivations. This is far from the first legislacerator sent to capture and try Aranea, and she’s killed all of the others easily enough. And there are very, very few trolls that make it through an official trial alive. Both of them want each other dead, and they _know_ they want each other dead. Latula won’t abandon her post, and you rather doubt Aranea would be willing to give up her fleet for whatever Latula can offer. Whatever they’re hoping to get from this, it won’t work.

                So, you edge slowly towards to Pyralspite, inching closer and closer, ignoring the agitated way her tail flicks back and forth. Finally, she decides she’s had enough, and surges to her feet, shrieking challenge. Latula immediately rushes to settle her, and Aranea turns as well, berating her crew and herding them back further from the scalebeast. But even then, when Latula looks at you, there isn’t a trace of recognition in her eyes, and you get barely a glance from her before she goes back to watching Aranea.

                When you give them their space, it takes perhaps two nights for things to go sour. You get woken up in the middle of the day by a crewmember telling you that the legislacerator is dead, and the crew needs to take down her lusus. Even after so long knowing, _knowing_ that you and Latula… even knowing what couldn’t happen between you, it’s hard to hear that she’s been killed. Out of curiosity, you step in yourself and swing the balance the other way, and Latula wakes up to find Aranea’s dead body on the floor. It isn’t as satisfying as you’d hoped. So you go back, and you force yourself to be involved.

                You are as difficult as possible. You’d ignored them out of spite, and now you spend every spare moment meddling—out of spite. Especially as the captain is so very distracted, you rank high enough to send any number of crewmembers to interfere with the happy couple. It’s remarkable just how many decisions absolutely _must_ have the captain’s input. And of course, with such an important visitor aboard the ship, there are so many things that she must be consulted over too.

                Yet still, they’re so… _happily_ pitch together. Yes, that’s the word. Happily. You can’t separate them. It’s intensely frustrating, the way they both seem so determined to ignore everything between them that doesn’t work, that will _never_ work. Aranea is determined to subvert Latula and convince her to join her crew. Latula seems convinced she’ll bring in Aranea for trial— You can’t even guess at what she thinks will happen to Aranea _during_ the trial. Or perhaps she’s just choosing to ignore the conclusion of every other trial she’s ever carried out in her whole life.

                It all comes to a head eventually. Latula has never been able to forget her duty, no matter how she tries, and she’s still receiving regular messages from Kurloz. And meanwhile, Aranea is gratingly smug and certain that she’s winning Latula over, that they’ll be an unstoppable team together as soon as Latula gives up on the government work. It’s an explosive combination, and you don’t have the faintest idea how you can go about defusing it.

                As it turns out, you aren’t meant to defuse it at all. It ends with a great deal of death, with the fleet in flames, and Aranea wounded—You can’t see how badly, exactly, but she’s missing at least her arm when Latula hauls her onto Pyralspite and they take off together. Your hair is singed, and you’re treading water in the ocean while the fleet burns around you. You’re one of the lucky ones. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth that you were only meant to help Aranea and Latula last long enough to make the ending this awful. It would have been so much easier if this had lasted for days rather than weeks, and now Aranea’s entire fleet is just… gone.

                You’re there for the trial. You’re honestly not surprised that Aranea has a plan. You’d be far more surprised if she just went quietly. But it’s so frustrating, so hideously frustrating to see Latula miss it. She should have seen this coming, she’s _better_ than this—And you can’t resist. You can’t just let this happen so easily. Your purpose seems to be to cause death and pain. Maybe, just maybe, can’t you be allowed to do that? So when Aranea controls the crowd, you freeze the crowd. You freeze Latula and His Honorable Tyranny, and it’s only you and Aranea when you step up to her, touch the noose around her neck, and pull the lever that sends her dropping through the floor to twitch at the end of the rope.

                It isn’t right, of course. And it isn’t right when you freeze everything except Latula and let her do it. It isn’t right when you kill her during her escape, when His Honorable Tyranny kills her, nothing. It’s only right when Aranea walks away, laughing and triumphant, and Latula is left swinging back and forth with the noose around her neck. You leave before you can watch Kurloz gloat.

                And after that, even then you don’t get to put Aranea behind you. No, when you go home, you’re told that now she’s meant to find Horuss. Horuss doesn’t deserve that. And Aranea doesn’t deserve _him_. You don’t care if you’re only delaying the inevitable. You don’t let it happen. With her fleet gone, and missing seven eyes and an arm, Aranea isn’t having the easiest time finding him on her own, and it’s simple enough to lead her even further astray. It’s so irritating to watch her strut around, pretending that she hasn’t just lost everything she had. You can’t endure much of that before you go back.

                This time, you go to Horuss. You feel so horribly guilty that it’s so easy to slip yourself back into his life. Even appearing out of nowhere at the door of his isolated island hive, knowing everything about him, even then he doesn’t question you. It only takes the smallest hint of affection to win him over. When you tell him to disguise his hive, he does it without a word. Even if Aranea does stumble across the island, she won’t have cause to think he’s here. And then it’s only you and him.

                Even knowing that none of this will last, you can’t help coaxing him to talk to you. It is… less simple than you thought. It takes weeks. He tries his hardest to keep his thoughts to himself, and he doesn’t break until you ask him to his face about Meulin. It comes pouring out of him in an ugly torrent, sweeps of, of—everything. Everything back further and further, until you can see the places where you set his life on this course, where you steered him one direction or another. And now he lies with his face buried in the crook of your neck and whispers his secrets while you soothe him and stroke his hair.

                What you aren’t expecting is for him to return the favor. It takes you completely by surprise, and you’re not ready—It slips out before you can help yourself. And once you start, somehow you can’t stop, and it’s just you and him in a pile together, and you had been the one holding him, but now you’re being held close and cradled against his thorax as you tell him about sweeps and sweeps and _sweeps_ worth of emotions and regrets and wishes, all in an awful confused jumble, admitting to every horrible thing you’ve done to—To everyone, to _him_. Horuss sits there and listens, absorbing it all. And not once does he tense, or push you away or say any of the, the things you know you _deserve_ to hear. At some point you start crying, and then you just can’t stop. You cry yourself out, and it’s terrible. Eventually, he must carry you from your pile to your recuperacoon, because the next thing you remember is waking up the following evening in the sopor slime, with Horuss curled carefully around you.

                You feel better than you have in sweeps. And you know it won’t last. You want to cry again, but you feel too empty and hollow to even manage that. You thought it was difficult to leave Latula, or, or to leave everyone else, every single time, but this is the hardest. Instead of holding onto the wrong future out of spite, you’re clinging because you’re afraid to leave. You last for as long as you can manage. It hurts at the back of your pan, the way these futures always do. In that pile together, you told Horuss that you’d eventually have to go back and undo everything. He knows. He understands. He even asks you about the process, everything you’ve done over the sweeps, picking apart the theory and neatly laying it out like he does with his robotics. He makes more sense of it than you’ve ever been able to. With you, it’s just an instinct of doing this thing to affect that thing, trial and error, who do you need to hurt this time, but he carefully breaks it down, piece by piece, tying each action to its echoing effects. Sometimes you think he understands the process better than you do.

                And finally, when the pain of the wrong future gets to be too much, and you can’t last any longer, you tell him that you have to leave. He’s frozen for a long moment, and then he simply bows his head and says, “I understand.” You wish you didn’t have to go. You wish you could just stay here, you and him, isolation and peace, no more manipulation, no more suffering and hurting, just the two of you and your quiet existence here alone. You take his face in both hands, press your lips to the top of his head, and shut your eyes. You take one last deep breath, and then you go back.

                Aranea thinks it’s her own skill that gets her to Horuss’s island. Fine. _Fine_. You watch from the shadows while he builds her arm. It aches to see him so miserable again, when you’d done so much to unwind that from him. He’s so desperate for someone that he even tries to confide in Aranea. She ignores it. Instead, she just talks over him, telling him (again) about her eyes and her arm, repeating tales of her own adventures. When they’re in the same room, she barely leaves him space in the conversation to say a single word. As far as you’re concerned, he can’t finish her arm quickly enough.

                When Aranea finally leaves, Horuss still takes it hard. You suppose—After so many dozens of sweeps completely alone, it isn’t unreasonable to need that contact, no matter how unpleasant your companion may be. You almost want to stay, meet him for the first time again. Maybe, maybe now he’s stopped mattering to the future. He lives here, isolated from the rest of the world, and if you were to step out and greet him right this moment, what would that affect? But in the bare few minutes it takes you to decide yourself, you’re called home, and even though you try to fight it, you don’t have the power to resist.

                And the reason you’ve been brought home? You’re sent to retrieve a grub. A little rust grub with curving horns, curled in on itself and sleeping at the bottom of a meteor crater. As you walk closer, it wakes up, and uncurls, smiling and waving its little legs at you. You watch it for a few long minutes. And then you step on it.

                You are called home.

                You are sent to your room.

                Centuries later, you are allowed to emerge.

                This time when you go to find the grub, you collect it in a swirl of psionics, and carry it home like that. You drop it on the floor, turn, and leave without a backward glance.

                Your next orders send you back to Mituna. By now he’s been in service for hundreds and hundreds of sweeps, and he was always so intelligent—It’s more than enough time for him to work out ways to slip around his programming and sabotage Meenah’s flagship. The problem isn’t urgent yet when you arrive, but damage is slowly beginning to work its way into the engine cores. You could call direct attention to what Mituna’s done. And you could subject him to sweeps of painful reconditioning. It’s your fault that he was taken into service as a helm in the first place. You slip into the crew as a new recruit, and call a senior engineer’s attention to the damage, all while apologizing that you don’t know what you did, but something went wrong.

                The joking over damn rusties who can’t tell their ass from their horns goes on for far longer than is funny (it was never funny), but the problem is fixed. And in the process of dismantling and rebuilding, you find the chance to call attention to a hole in the programming logic that could… _theoretically_ allow an imaginative helm to gradually overload the engines. They begin the reprogramming, and Mituna’s prison is well on its way to being locked that much more tightly. That morning, while you’re standing day watch, you go to his helmsblock to talk to him.

                He ignores you. You’ve only seen him in person one other time since coming aboard. It’s a game aboard the ships to tell new recruits horror stories about the helmsmen and biowires and what they can do to a troll… and then take them to the helmsblock and order them to retrieve an essential component that _somehow_ fell _somewhere_ among the biowires covering the floors. You wonder how many times Mituna’s had to put up with that since he entered service.

                He doesn’t pay you any more attention when you nudge loops of biowires into a rough pile and sit down, looking up at him. On the other hand, once you start talking about Kankri—He doesn’t just look at you, but the lights flicker too, and you even hear the air filtration system stutter. You know that in all likelihood, you’ll only have to go back and undo this conversation. But it’s been so long since you were really able to _talk_ to anyone, and. Mituna is so hedged in with restrictions and programming, it took him centuries to find a way to do something as simple as overloading the engines. How much can telling him this damage the future? Who would he tell about you, Meenah? Maybe, just maybe, this conversation might be allowed to last.

                Of course, you call it a conversation, but you didn’t exactly plan ahead. You brought up Kankri because you thought it would be most likely to get Mituna’s attention. It doesn’t take long before you trail off awkwardly, and you can’t think of what to say next. Mituna doesn’t say anything. You’re starting to think this was a useless idea, that it was foolish to think that you’d ever be allowed to affect things like this, and you’re about to go back, when Mituna finally say, “What are you?”

                Well. Isn’t that an interesting question. It takes a long time to answer. Mituna asks questions here and there, his voice rusty and barely rising above a whisper. You and he were never particularly close when you traveled with Kankri—which _never happened_ , you have to remember that—but he was always more suspicious and distant than the others were. He was right to be, of course, and you can’t forget that, looking at him strung up in his rig with biowires burrowing into where his arms and legs used to be. But he’s here now, and you’re here now, and he doesn’t tell you to leave, and he keeps asking you questions.

                The day doesn’t last long enough. Embarrassingly, you miss the end of your shift once, and you and Mituna are both surprised by your relief bursting into the block with weapons drawn, shouting for you to back away from the helm. You go back, just an hour, and this time you make your apologies and return to your station before you can be missed. But before you go to your recuperacoon, you make sure to start some trouble right in view of your commanding officer. And as it so happens, the standard punishment for disciplinary infractions is to stand the day shift. Imagine.

                So you’re there again the next day, and Mituna begins asking you questions before you’ve even closed the door to the helmsblock. He… wants to know what happened to the others. You tell him easily enough that Meulin died of old age, and that she spent the rest of her life spreading Kankri’s teachings. You don’t mention how miserable she was, but from the look on Mituna’s face, you think he can guess.

                You’re so, so tempted to lie about Porrim. It would. Be easy. Just to say that she died quickly, or she escaped and was killed, or that she died happy and free. He’d never know. You can’t meet his eyes while you describe her time in slavery, and the way she died. And then, after you’ve told him the whole thing, you go back and admit that you were the one who chose that master for her. You cut yourself off in the middle of trying to explain that you’d wanted to try—that you’d hoped for the best, that you tried to find a kind master for her. The block is filled with choking, awful silence, and then Mituna clears his throat and tells you that records indicate that Orphaner Dualscar was killed by Her Imperious Condescension in sweep 1025 of her reign. You work out the dates—It corresponds almost exactly. He must have died within weeks after he killed Porrim. It helps, in a vicious, useless way.

                And worst of all, Mituna wants you to describe Kankri’s execution. He didn’t only have a head injury when it happened, he was also on psionic-suppressing drugs that left him barely conscious. You thought it was difficult telling him about Meulin and Porrim, but this is much worse. You can’t look at him, and he isn’t looking at you. When you’re trying to remember as much as you can of Kankri’s last sermon, you sneak a look up at his face, and yellow tears are rolling steadily off his chin. You edge close enough to lean up against what’s left of his thighs. You aren’t doing much better than he is by the time you finish. There isn’t much left to be said after that, but you still sit with him in his block until your shift is over.

                In fact, you manage to keep yourself on the day shifts for weeks. You suppose that your work isn’t technically over until the repairs to the ship are complete, and you can’t feel the ache of a wrong future, even though you and Mituna spend every single day in each other’s company. You almost dare to hope that this is something of you that will be allowed to _last_. However, working the day shifts has its disadvantages. You don’t actually realize how far the repairs have progressed until they’re nearly done, and you only have a single night’s warning to tell Mituna that you’re going to be pulled away. The last thing he asks you is whether he’ll ever see you again, and the only answer you can give him is, “Maybe.”

                Some of your feelings must spill over, because when you are called home, you are chastised for your temper, and told that your work is nearly done, if you will only be patient enough to see it through. It… helps. You’ve been exhausted for centuries and centuries, and you want nothing more than to be _done_. Still, the idea of simply going along quietly with your orders doesn’t sit well with you. For the first time in sweeps, you’re motivated to try making changes that will last, to disobey your orders in a way that hasn’t been foreseen.

                The pupa you’re sent to guide, Rufioh, is a mutant. And you need him to lead a revolution. By all rights he should be culled right when he enters his adult molt and emerges with bright bronze wings. So… you let that happen. It’s so easy to let him die. And it isn’t right of course, but it ends up being a bit of a challenge getting him past that point, and into society with his wings safely hidden. On the other hand, it is very, very easy to win his trust. All you have to do is show up outside his hive, looking a little lost and confused, and he invites you right on in.

                You pretend to be a new neighbor, and he believes you unquestioningly. You move into an abandoned hive right away, and he shows up with hive-warming presents. So of course, you reciprocate. He’s only weeks away from his adult molt, but it’s enough time for him to take you completely into his confidence. He even outright asks if you’ll stay nearby while he molts, because his lusus always warned him that his molt might be difficult, but never said _how_. You know by now, so you’re utterly unsurprised when he emerges and damp, limp wings drape across the floor.

                Rufioh doesn’t have any idea what’s going on. It makes your heart clench to see him so lost and confused, throwing himself entirely on your mercy. By all rights, you should be culling him for deformity. Most trolls would. But once he realizes that he has wings, he only turns to you and asks what he should do. And. He falls asleep right there, with you in the room, with his new wings laying out and everything. You realize that you’re blushing from how shamelessly vulnerable he’s being, because, because you haven’t _earned_ this trust, and if he keeps going on trusting people like this, he’ll only end up dead.

                You help Rufioh devise a harness to keep his wings hidden. But even with the wings, even _knowing_ that he’ll be killed for them the moment they’re discovered, he still plans to become a cavalreaper. It does make sense. For the leader of a revolution to be involved with the army. But you can’t help trying to stop him, to steer him away. It isn’t so difficult. He hates the idea that he’s making anybody unhappy, and you only have to let him know how uneasy you are to persuade him that he should find a different (safer) profession. Kankri began a revolution without ever being a part of the military, so perhaps this is right. And of course it isn’t right. Of course. You can feel the wrong future begin eating at you the moment he gives up on being a cavalreaper.

                The most frustrating thing is that you have to stay involved in his life. There simply isn’t a good way to keep him alive without being so close to him. If you stay distant, or if you stay hidden, he’s killed within days of his molt. You have to be there with him in his hive, and he has to trust himself to you, that’s the only way for this to work. And then you have to send him to the army. You don’t want to. One time you even cut off his wings _yourself_ , when he’s barely even begun to come back to himself after his molt. You cut them off and burn them and he never realizes, and he’s _safe_ , and the future… is wrong. You reveal him to Kurloz yourself, cut the back of Rufioh’s binding vest while he stands guard, and his wings come unfurling out, fluttering in the faint breeze. Kurloz laughs and laughs and grabs the wings in his hands and tears them off himself.

                The only way forward is for Rufioh to stay hidden and stay in the army. It isn’t easy for him. And you do understand. He would be such a loyal servant for Meenah and Kurloz, but he can’t ever forget that he’d be killed just for growing wings he never chose to have. And that opens his eyes to other bits and pieces of unfairness. His blood is brown and yours is rust. The two of you get by, but you aren’t treated well, and now he thinks to ask _why_. There isn’t a good answer. He advances in the ranks. Slowly, but he advances. And when he comes back to your hive in the mornings, he lies with you in your recuperacoon and talks about equality.

                You are beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this will be one relationship that you don’t have to leave or undo. So it’s an unexpected shock when he leaves you. He takes you aside one night, tells you not to follow him, because it won’t be safe, but things need to change and he’s going to be the one to do it. You do… try to follow. You follow him directly, you slip to where he’s hiding and show yourself, you refuse to even consider leaving him. And it does you no good, none of those futures are right. The only thing you’re allowed to do is sit meekly and let him fly off into the sky. It’s. Worse than all the times you’ve been forced to leave. This is worse. And you aren’t allowed to reveal yourself to him again, no matter how you try.

                His revolution goes poorly. He does well enough, but Meenah and Kurloz move to crush him quickly, no matter how you go back and try to shift events. Finally, you go back further, sweeps back, and after a bit of work, a bit of time to rise through the ranks, Meenah and Kurloz seem to have acquired a new general. You weaken the military as much as you can. You advise Meenah to conquer new systems, _multiple_ systems at once, because isn’t her army strong enough to handle it? You disperse archeradicators and other high-blooded divisions away from Alternia, out to distant sectors of the empire. And as best as you are able, you try to convince Meenah that her other commanders simply don’t have her best interests at heart. Every time you go to visit her palace, you can’t help remembering that if you were to take a short flight into the countryside, you’d find yourself living happily with Rufioh.

                It works well enough. It takes some sweeps of trial and error to learn to be an effective officer—and then sweeps more to learn to be an _ineffective_ officer—but by the time Rufioh begins his rebellion, you’ve done your part. The military is slow to respond, divisions of soldiers are star systems away and locked in battle with alien armies. You make clumsy orders, stage your battles carefully, disregard important evidence, and Rufioh wins several crucial victories. Once the lowblood soldiers begin defecting by the thousands, you leave your post too, and track him down to simply…watch.

                You are completely taken aback to find Aranea at his camp. _With_ him. You wonder at first if they’re pitch—But no, this is utterly and completely flush. How could she? How could _he?_ You’re painfully aware of how she’s treated everyone around her since she reached adulthood, and Rufioh is so kind and gentle, how can they be _flush_ together? It hurts. It _hurts_. You can’t help yourself, even though you know it must be wrong. You step in and meddle. They’re more difficult to separate than you’d imagined. Considering that this revolution is centered around blood, you’re surprised he’d be so willing to trust someone as cool-blooded as she is, and you’re outright shocked to see her willing to trust anyone at _all—_ But it isn’t right. You go back, and you let them progress on their own.

                You shouldn’t be so surprised to see them eventually separate. But given how hard it was for you to push them apart, you really hadn’t expected him to kill her. You—You must admit you’d been toying with the idea of feeding false information to Rufioh’s spies, convincing him somehow that Aranea was still loyal to the hemocaste. But it had only been an idea, nothing you’d actually tried yet. And the mistrust still built up between them until it came to an explosive, bloody head.

                After it’s all over, you even find yourself a little regretful. You wanted to separate Aranea from Rufioh, but he takes this hard. It would… be unfair of you to assume that she was never flush for him. And watching him now, you feel certain that he was flush for her. He shouldn’t have had to kill her. You wonder whether he ever tried contacting you after he left. You wonder whether he sent you messages, visited your old hive, anything. He steps down as the leader of the revolution after he kills Aranea. It breaks your heart, but he doesn’t do much more than lie on the cot in his tent and stare up at the ceiling. Once, you try to step in and comfort him, but the future goes wrong, sharp and hard, and you have to go back to fix it. The revolution loses its momentum when they lose him, and within perigees, they’ve been overrun by the empire’s forces.

                It’s almost all over then. Your last orders are to wait for Meenah on Alternia, once you two are the only two trolls left in the universe. You don’t go there directly. You wander here and there. You watch the little pupas begin their game and destroy the world. It’s very satisfying, seeing the meteors rain down on the planet. And when Gl’bgolyb begins to die, you go to Mituna. It takes a few long moments to get his attention, once you’re in the helmsblock. He comes back to his body slowly, and smiles as his eyes begin to focus on you. By then you’re already starting to feel the Vast Glub vibrating through your thorax. Rustbloods are dying, but you’re not allowed to die, not quite yet—When Mituna begins to feel it, he grins even wider. The last thing he says is, “ _Finally._ ”

                After that, all that’s left to do is meet Meenah. You arrive on the beach just as her flagship makes a clumsy landing on the sand. It almost makes you laugh to think that you left Mituna only minutes ago, and now you’re meeting him again hundreds of sweeps later. Meenah comes stalking off the ship, teeth bared with her trident in hand, and you _do_ laugh to think that she doesn’t even recognize you, and you know her so, so well. And she thinks you have a _problem_ with her killing you? You laugh even harder. It makes her absolutely furious, of course. She calls you a beach, among other things, yes, what an imaginative fish pun, you’ve never heard that one before. Everything she does just amuses you more and more, but eventually you manage to pull yourself together well enough to make your offer.

                You can tell she isn’t really listening as you lay out the terms of her contract. But that really doesn’t matter, does it. She can make an informed decision, or an uninformed decision, it is entirely up to her. She interrupts before you’re even halfway through, and tells you that she’ll do it if she gets to kill (krill) you. And then she calls you a beach again. Somehow, it doesn’t make her any happier when you tell her that pun was boring the _first_ time she did it, and she’s almost wordless with fury when you ask her if she accepts the terms of the contract.

                She says yes as she’s already leaping for you, but you’re ready—It would be such a shame to let her just do as she wants! Your needles leave a long burn down the side of her leg and thorax, right over her gills, but that’s all you have time for before her trident slams into your thorax. You drop your needles and stagger back a step. It’s just. Sitting there, and this is the right future, and everything is _over_ , it’s all _done_. You touch the trident with one shaking hand, just to be certain it’s really there. And then you just laugh and laugh and laugh as you sink down onto the sand.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/109731112456/down-by-the-water-spockandawe-homestuck)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tea with Sugar, Like Dying Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566139) by [confiscatedretina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/confiscatedretina/pseuds/confiscatedretina)




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